Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Streetcar meeting was standing room only and several people were turned away as the room filled to capacity. The meeting was informative, especially in terms of dispelling some myths and getting out some basic background information about the plans for the line down H Street. DDOT posted the presentation online at their DCStreetcar.com website.

There was not a lot of news from the meeting itself. The biggest news was that they are still on track for Summer 2013 for operating cars down H Street and that the access point to Union Station would be from the H Street "Hopscotch" Bridge near what would be 1st & H NE. That news was cheered by residents near 3rd & F St who didn't want the streetcars running down their narrow side road, but little additional detail about why this option would work well, or even quite how it would work in terms of accessing the metro at Union Station was presented. That will hopefully be the subject of the next streetcar meeting back at the Atlas on December 20, at 6 pm.

Construction on the bridge, for the power substations and the car barn at the eastern end will begin this Spring. The cars will run from early morning until at least midnight. The plan is still to eventually continue the line west through downtown all the way to Georgetown, so the Union Station connection is emphasized as being "temporary." Same goes for the western end point as the hope and plan is for it to continue further east as well.

The presentation from last night was quite comprehensive on most points besides the details of the Union Station connection and is worth a review for anyone who was unable to attend the meeting. The next meeting on December 20 will focus on the interim connection to Union Station, which remains our biggest question going ahead.

2 comments:

hopefully it will run late on the weekends. that way workers at the bars can get reliable (every 10 minutes?) transportation linking them to metro, patrons can avoid driving (lessening potential drunk driving and freeing up neighborhood parking, not to mention helping the environment) and exposing loads more people to this great public transit option

Agreed, Alan. I hope the frequency will be 10 minutes during rush hour and nights when the traffic is likely at its highest and that the cars will run late enough to serve the weekend crowd as well. It's good for the businesses, good for the neighbors, and good for the corridor's patrons from other parts of town.